


In Cloud

by wei



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-25
Updated: 2011-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:12:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wei/pseuds/wei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata in Cloud.</p><p>Written for the AU meme at naruto_meme.  Prompt: What if Hinata had been successfully kidnapped by the Hidden Cloud nin when she was three?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Cloud

Hinata had nightmares of being woken in her sleep and being carted off in the dark by strangers for as long as she could remember. She wasn't sure why, though. Her life was mostly carefree and contented, with parents who told her they loved her and how Very Special she was, especially after her weekly doctor's visit. (And the visits weren't bad either, even though she disliked how the doctor poked and prodded at her eyes and the way she'd be occasionally be put to sleep for hours and miss the games of tag or hide and seek that the neighborhood children organized. On those occasions, her mother would demonstrate the lightning jutsu that her village was known for, buy her cinnamon rolls, or pick the small mountain flowers with her, so she still couldn't complain much.)

The most anxiety she felt was at the Academy, when she spotted a certain classmate. She wasn't extremely timid, but every time Hinata looked at her, she felt the heat of a blush rise on her cheeks and her heart rate double in speed, and she wouldn't be able to get out a word. Perhaps she was a little shy. She was content with watching the vivid and vivacious girl, with the merry eyes and an infectious grin, and basking in her brightness, but that wasn't enough for her classmates, who pushed and prodded her until she had gained a true bosom friend.

When Hinata was twelve, she woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, her heart pounding in her ears. She told herself to stop panicking, that she was a genin and wouldn't be cowed by childish night terrors, but when she opened her eyes, she froze. In a still figure on the other side of the room, she saw eyes that matched hers, a face that hovered on the fringes of recognition, and thought that maybe, she hadn't actually been having nightmares.

In the blur of that moment, she thought she screamed for help while her fingers automatically started a series of hand motions, but the only thing she could definitely remember was waking up later with a throbbing head and the sun too bright, the air too thick, and knowing that she was miles and miles away from home.

She refused to believe the man when he introduced himself as her uncle (because he wasn't; her only uncle was her mother's younger brother, who was loud and careless, and would never worry about an enemy nin getting rope burns), was silent when he asked her about herself (you tell nothing to the enemy if you can help it: every academy student knew that), and when he hummed (badly) a lullaby that she had never quite gotten out of her head, she bit her cheek to avoid asking him if he could teach her the words. She sobbed when she was brought to the gate of a complex and realized that it was smaller than she thought it should have been.

Hinata spent the weeks after that wandering the brown and white halls that had made up the background of her dreams. She ignored the constant prickling feeling of eyes on her skin, the whispers that would fall silent when she turned the corner, and the claustrophobia that set in when she meandered too close to the outer walls of the house and was turned away by warped mirror images of herself. She was more concerned with the man and woman she dined with in awkward silences every night (they were too distant and cold to be Father and Mother) and the little girl that glared at her when she entered the room (her replacement, and the little girl knew it). She wondered if it was her fault, if the love and trust they might have had was snatched away with her, and her own happy childhood was at the cost of another's.

She felt like a ghost wandering through the halls and thought it fit. She was trapped between the Main and Branch houses, neither protector or protected and between the Cloud and the Leaf, wondering whether she owed allegiance to the village that had abducted and lied to her, or to one where she had no ties to.

She missed her family and her home, but couldn't decide who and where that was supposed to be.


End file.
